Harris scholar Alex Fouirnaies examines high value on access to agenda setters
Every year companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections in the United States. Yet studies of roll-call votes have shown that donations to specific office holders do not regularly yield the votes donors want. So why do industries continue to pour billions into the coffers of legislators? (more…)
Samsung and Apple Continue to Seize Share in OEM Market
RESTON, VA, January 3, 2013– comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, 
reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending November 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 26.9 percent market share. Google Android continued to lead among smartphone platforms, accounting for 53.7 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple secured 35 percent.
OEM Market Share
For the three-month average period ending in November, device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 26.9 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 1.2 percentage points). Apple ranked second with 18.5 percent market share (up 1.4 percentage points), followed by LG with 17.5 percent share, Motorola with 10.4 percent and HTC with 5.9 percent. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Increasingly, U.S. firms are moving or considering moving their manufacturing operations back to domestic soil from overseas, finds a new study co-authored by a Michigan State University supply chain expert.
Fueling the trend are rising labor costs in emerging countries, high oil prices and increasing transportation costs, global risks such as political instability and other factors, said Tobias Schoenherr.
“Going overseas is not the panacea that it was thought of just a decade or so ago,” said Schoenherr, assistant professor in MSU’s top-ranked Department of Supply Chain Management. “Companies have realized the challenges and thus are moving back to the United States.” (more…)
Apple Inches Closer to #2 Position in OEM Market
RESTON, VA, October 2, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service, 
reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending August 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.7 percent market share. Google Android led among smartphone platforms, accounting for 52.6 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple accounted for 34.3 percent. (more…)
Apple’s Share of Smartphone Market Grows to 1 in 3 Subscribers
RESTON, VA, September 4, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens 
service, reporting key trends in the U.S. mobile phone industry during the three month average period ending July 2012. The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.6 percent market share. Google Android continued to lead among smartphone platforms, accounting for 52.2 percent of smartphone subscribers, while Apple secured 33.4 percent.
OEM Market Share
For the three-month average period ending in July, 234 million Americans age 13 and older used mobile devices. Device manufacturer Samsung ranked as the top OEM with 25.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers, followed by LG with 18.4 percent share. Apple continued to gain share in the OEM market, ranking third with 16.3 percent of mobile subscribers (up 1.9 percentage points), followed by Motorola with 11.2 percent and HTC with 6.4 percent (up 0.4 percentage points). (more…)
Kazakh Gold Producer to Improve Gold Yield with IBM Business Analytics
Armonk, N.Y. – 20 Jul 2012: IBM has announced that it is working with JSC Altyntau Resources, a leading gold producer in Kazakhstan, to provide a new business analytics system to help the company to improve gold yields and increase the profitability of its operations.
The new system will enable the gold producer to centralize and quickly analyze data about its mining operations. It includes a dashboard of important information enabling the company’s management team to make informed decisions about which ore to mine and which extraction processes to use to achieve the best return on investment. Once the project is complete, JSC Altyntau Resources will be able to speed up its annual financial planning cycle from two months to two weeks and ensure that investors are kept informed on the company’s operations and forecasts. (more…)
As the economy of the world continues to fluctuate and the unemployment rates remain high even in the most stable first world economies, people everywhere are looking for ways to cut back their monthly budgets. One of the first things that is usually on the chopping block are the various insurance packages that people consider a luxury.
Although this is perhaps the least advisable way to lower monthly liabilities, many people think that it is their only option. They believe that prices on things like car insurance and home insurance are set in stone, and that they cannot be negotiated down. This notion is far from the truth. (more…)
If computers could become ‘smart’ enough to recognize who is talking, that could allow them to produce real-time transcripts of meetings, courtroom proceedings, debates, and other important events. In the dissertation that will allow him to receive his Ph.D. at Commencement this year, Brian Reggiannini found a way to advance the state of the art for voice- and speaker-recognition.
Everyone does signal processing every day, even if we don’t call it that. With friends at a sports bar, we peer up at the TV to see the score, we turn our head toward the crashing sound when a waitress drops a glass, and perhaps most remarkably, we can track the fast-paced banter of all the people in our booth, even if we’ve never met some of the friends-of-friends who have insinuated themselves into the scene.
Very few of us, however, could ever get a computer to do anything like that. That’s why doing it well has earned Brian Reggiannini a Ph.D. at Brown and a career in the industry.
In his dissertation, Reggiannini managed to raise the bar for how well a computer connected to a roomful of microphones can keep track of who among a small group of speakers is talking. Further refined and combined with speech recognition, such a system could lead to instantaneous transcriptions of meetings, courtroom proceedings, or debates among, say, several rude political candidates who are prone to interrupt. It could help the deaf follow conversations in real-time. (more…)
